If Kris Murray assures you that there is no salt in your food, confirm that she is referring to a sodium compound rather than to a character from a children’s book. Image shamelessly stolen from Jason Young.

A few comments on yesterday evening’s Anaheim City Council Meeting.

(1) Veruca Salt Insists On Having Her Way

Jason Young offers this video editing together the highlights of Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait patiently trying to teach Councilwoman Kris Murray what a “legal definition” of a concept is and why that’s important. Like a child who will not believe that Monopoly money isn’t “money,” she simply refuses to believe it, on a ground similar to arguing that of course it’s money because it’s called “money” and people use it to play Monopoly. My (fallible, but verfiable) quick transcription follows.

TAIT: [Murray’s Chart reads:] “The Citizens Advisory Commission recommended the issue of districting be put to a vote. Council Agreed.” That’s – that’s not true. The CAC did recommend that the issue of districting be put to a vote, but the Council didn’t agree. Council agreed to keep it at-large. The people do not have a choice. They have a choice between “at-large” and “at-large.” That’s the choice. That’s not a choice.

TAIT: I do not understand why – what’s anyone afraid of, of letting the people decide whether they want districting.

MURRAY: The facts are: it is a legal districting model in the state of California that is employed in our county and with other states. It is a district system.

TAIT [to City Attorney Michael Houston]: Is this, what we’re voting on tonight, a district system? Is it an at-large or district system? Legally?

HOUSTON: This is a system that is defined in state law as an at-large system.

MURRAY: It is a district-based system. It is not fair for you to say that it’s false, that it is not a districting system.

TAIT: So, by definition, this is at-large.

HOUSTON: This is an at-large system.

TAIT: That’s my point. So we are giving the – people will not be given a choice, they’ll be given a choice between two at-large systems. The CAC asked that the issue of districting be put to a vote. “Districting” has a meaning to it. It means that people who live in the district vote for people in that district.

MURRAY: Now this is a legal and viable and valid option and we are taking steps to make immediate decisions in implementing it immediately by ordinance as well and then putting the two measures before our voters.

TAIT: This is about simply asking the people in Anaheim how they want to be represented: at-large or districting. Right now the choice is “at-large” or “at-large.”

Tait — with the slightly exasperated patience of someone whose children have convinced him to try to teach their border collie to eat using chopsticks — persists in explaining to Murray that the legal definition of “districting,” according to state law, is one in which the voters within a given district choose a representative for that district. (I’ve referred to this as a “voter-residency” system, as opposed to a “candidate-residency” system; beleaguered City Attorney Michael Houston uses the terms in the state Elections Code: a “by” versus a “from” system.) You can call soy juice mixed with water “soy milk,” but legally that doesn’t make it “milk.”

But Murray shall not be moved by such trivialities as Election Codes! She points out that “candidate-residency” voting is “legal” and “viable” and “valid.” The same, of course, is true of Monopoly money. It’s legal, viable, and valid — for a limited purpose, such as playing Monopoly. Candidate-residency districts are legal, viable, and valid for the purpose of ensuring geographic diversity among candidates. It is not, however, a “legal” or “viable” or “valid” way of allowing voters self-determination of who will represent their districts.

That is what “districting” involves. It’s in the bleeding Elections Code! Even Michael Houston, who clearly did not want to be crossing the Representative from Disney, had to admit that several times. A “from” election system is not categorized by state law as a “districting” system, but as an “at-large” system. In the domain of voting systems — in which at least Judge Franz Miller understands us to be operating, even if Kris Murray does not — a system cannot be both “district” and “at-large”!

Now, frankly, it shouldn’t matter: for legal reasons, real districting — voter-residency districting — has to be approved whether or not the CAC endorsed a vote on it, or indeed whether or not the public votes for it. (For reasons that will probably be obvious, we don’t put the voting rights of minorities up to a vote.) But the fact is that despite the CAC’s dealing from a deck stacked by the Council, it somehow came out with a recommendation that the people vote on which system they wanted, while endorsing neither.

Murray can’t even follow that! At one point, she argued that the CAC recommended to “put the issue of district OR at-large elections to the people,” as if that meant the Council should choose to put just one of them before voters. How explicit would the CAC have had to make their instructions before Murray would have grudgingly felt forced to follow them?

(2) Kris Murray was right about one thing, though…

Despite some people’s suggestions to the contrary, I deal with a lot of issues besides Anaheim Districting. So, in looking at the agenda and reminding myself that districting was to be discussed again, I forgot that this was about the (redundant) ordinance rather than the (more interesting and significant) charter amendment that is headed for the ballot (until Judge Miller most likely changes that.) So I spoke about it as if it was the latter rather than the former. The error wasn’t that consequential, though: I’d still have like to see Tait and Brandman try to remove the redundant words “at-large” from the ordinance — the words that make the proposed charter amendment conflict with any potential citizens initiative for real districting and render such an initiative far more difficult — but that wasn’t the moment to bring it up. (It was a good chance to educate the viewing audience, though, so I’m still happy for that!)

For the record, here’s what can and should happen now — or any time before the deadline for finalizing the ballot: either Eastman or Kring have to propose reconsideration of the motion. (Once the Judge slaps the snot out of the city might be a good time for that.) Then, that person can vote, with Brandman and Tait, to remove the words “at large” from the ballot. Then, such a measure won’t conflict with a measure to implement district voting. OK? So, talk to Eastman and Kring about how — their own preferences aside — they don’t trust the city’s voters to even consider districting. We’ll keep that drum beating here.

(3) Here’s Some Other Friendly Advice for Kris Murray

If someone districting is determined by Judge Miller — based on, you know, California statutes and such — to involve “people voting for their representative” rather than a candidate dispersion system, perhaps she could next go after the word “vote.” Here, I wrote her a speech:

“Sure, people can ‘vote on districting’ — but that doesn’t mean that it has to be a binding vote in a formal election. Newspapers conduct print and online polls all of the time. We can buy a quarter page in the Register and let Anaheim residents either mail in or electronically cast their ballots, and then we’ll know what they think! Online voting is a legal and viable and valid option for finding out what people think that has been used in this county and elsewhere in the state.”

OK, it’s absurd — but it’s no more absurd than claiming that “districting” doesn’t mean what it means under state law.

(4) The Next Line of Attack: Letting Dark People Vote Causes Disaster!

The meeting was important in that it introduced the next line of substantive attack over districting:

Yes, every city in the state that is larger than Anaheim has districts — but look how screwed up they are! Los Angeles, San Jose, San Francisco, Long Beach — totally screwed up! Anaheim, though, is not screwed up. Let’s stick with at-large cities like Chula Vista and Newport Beach and, uh, Stockton.

(See, my including Stockton is funny because it’s the largest California city to go bankrupt. Get it?)

The idea here is that where members of Council represent districts, they fight over money to represent their particular constituents. In Anaheim, though, that doesn’t happen! Of course, those other cities have large minority communities — which have representatives. (I can’t recall — what is the most money that a Latino Democrat has ever spent to be elected to the Anaheim City Council? Lorri Galloway — half-Spaniard and half-Filipina by ancestry, doesn’t count for purposes of this question.)

It appears not to occur to Murray that she is bragging here about the city’s not being pressured to spend money on those who clamor for it — which (1) shows a breathtaking lack of awareness, after the GardenWalk Giveaway and the Disney-but-not-Disney streetcar, and (2) practically amounts to a guilty plea on the charge that the disempowered in Anaheim don’t get listened to. Anaheim, more than others, has kept Latinos out of power — and Latino Democrats, those from the party with which most Latinos identify — haven’t bothered running at all. Bragging about not spending money — except on things like corporate welfare and massive police response to protests — is not really a good argument, when the argument boils down to “we’ve kept our brown people out of power — and look how good our budget is!”

About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose worker's rights and government accountability attorney, residing in northwest Brea. General Counsel of CATER, the Coalition of Anaheim Taxpayers for Economic Responsibility, a non-partisan group of people sick of local corruption.
Deposed as Northern Vice Chair of DPOC in April 2014 when his anti-corruption and pro-consumer work in Anaheim infuriated the Building Trades and Teamsters in spring 2014, who then worked with the lawless and power-mad DPOC Chair to eliminate his internal oversight.
Occasionally runs for office to challenge some nasty incumbent who would otherwise run unopposed. (Someday he might pick a fight with the intent to win rather than just dent someone. You'll know it when you see it.) He got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012 and in 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002.
None of his pre-putsch writings ever spoke for the Democratic Party at the local, county, state, national, or galactic level, nor do they now.
A family member co-owns a business offering campaign treasurer services to Democratic candidates and the odd independent. He is very proud of her. He doesn't directly profit from her work and it doesn't affect his coverage. (He does not always favor her clients, though she might hesitate to take one that he truly hated.)
He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.)

7 Comments

Meeting after meeting for the last year we have listened to their excuses for why Districts are such a bad idea. What they have missed is that the time and place for those arguments is not at the dais, those arguments are for the campaign, once the issue is put on the ballot for a vote. I do not CARE whether they like Districts or not, and Lucille Kring sharing the opinion of Assemblyman Wagner and his wife is even more ludicrous! Really, I am thrilled that the current system works for a rich white attorney who lives in Irvine and whose connection to Anaheim involves part the upper reach of his District stretching into a sliver of Anaheim Hills, http://arc.asm.ca.gov/member/AD68/?p=bio but I wonder what the Hell that has to do with a Latino voter on Romneya who cannot get a park or community center so his kids have a safe place to play before they get labeled for “known to associate with gang members” because when the only place to shoot hoops is in the alley, you have no choice but to associate with gang members. For Lucille Kring to even bring up his opinion on our system drives home the complete disconnect these elitists have with the everyday resident anymore. Good gravy!

One very wise friend told me “…(as for the district issue on a ballot)…I do think it should be held — because the issue has been raised. It’s like, once someone says there’s a problem, there’s a moral obligation to investigate it. It may turn out that there is a problem or it may turn out that there isn’t, but there’s an obligation to find out. I feel the same way about this — it’s been asserted that our current system is unfair, therefore there’s an obligation to investigate and have the city vote on what, if anything, should be done (not that I think many citizens will have much idea of what the issues are).”

I loved that answer. She thinks the current system works, but it works for a middle class, educated, white woman, and she recognizes it might not work for everyone in the community, and if so that needs to be fixed. In her mind human compassion and equality come before self interest. What a concept.

My message to the Council majority is this; We understand you people like the system as it now stands, of course you do, it elected you. We also do not CARE if you like it or not, what we want is the chance to tell you how WE feel about how we are being governed. You have ignored us at Public Comments, you ignore our emails and phone calls, and dismiss or rebut our letters to the editor, and your friends pay a blogger to attack us online for having the audacity to form opinions contrary to you and your corporate mentality. As another friend put it, “Just line me up and put the barcode on my forehead and be done with it,” and I agree, if we are no longer to think for ourselves, at least eliminate the frustration of allowing us to still believe we are supposed to have that right.

Stop telling us why you are being so magnanimous in saving us from ourselves by not allowing us to implement a bad idea. After all, we elected YOU and we have to live with that decision for a while too!

Initially I believed (silly me) that they failed to understand the issues, that they did not comprehend the level of disconnect in the poorer neighborhoods, but I no longer buy into that. I think they know precisely the way many of us feel and they simply do not care because their own hold on power is more important to them than the people they were elected to serve. That is wicked. That is evil. And that has one-term written all over it. Forget whether Districts will toss them from office, voters will do it for the arrogance factor alone.

Stop stalling, stop bullshitting us, and LET US VOTE! Why are you afraid of letting us have a voice?

As an Anaheim resident I hope you are correct about the fighting chance thing, but I believe it is a forlorn hope. Anybody who is allowed to dump tons of chemicals on the citizens of a city can pretty much do any damn thing he wants.

Today’s LA Times, reporting on a similar situation as ours in Anaheim:

“In an opinion released this week, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Mark V. Mooney concluded that Palmdale’s at-large voting system violated state law because the city has “racially polarized voting” and minorities have less influence over the outcomes of elections.

Thanks for the link, Ricardo, here is an interesting quote from that article,

Rubin, who also represented the plaintiffs in the Modesto case, said Palmdale’s loss at trial may send a signal to other agencies to voluntarily adopt by-district elections or risk facing expensive lawsuits.

Often, said Rod Pacheco, a former Riverside County district attorney who now specializes in voting rights cases, elected officials appeared to be trying to drag out the case despite knowing that they probably would lose and that taxpayers would be stuck with the bill.

“The City Council of Palmdale, which made the decision to fight this and expend those funds, didn’t spend their own money,” Pacheco said. Officials often seem primarily concerned about hanging on to their jobs, he said: “The tack that many of these cities take is to get to the next election.”